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It may be possible to control HIV with early treatment

Scientists say that there is increasing evidence that it is possible to control the virus that causes AIDS with early treatment, so further therapy is not immediately needed. Fourteen patients with HIV, who received antiretroviral treatment within 10 weeks of infection, had their viral loads decreased so much that scientists say they are "functionally cured."

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - "The amazing thing is that it seems that by early treatment, we can induce this type of control of infection in 10-15 percent of individuals," lead study author Asier Saez-Cirion of the Institute Pasteur in Paris says.

"Cure" is a term usually reserved for someone who was once infected has no virus left in his or her body.

In this particular instance, it can be said that there is "sustained remission that doesn't require therapy," Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institutes of Health's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases says -- what scientists call a "functional cure."

"You haven't eradicated the virus, but interestingly, when you stop therapy, even though the virus is still there and you can measure it, it doesn't come back with a vengeance and cause disease in the person," he says.

These 14 were identified out of 70 people with HIV whose treatment had been interrupted. It must be noted that the virus in these patients is not completely eradicated, even though they have been off therapy for up to about 10 years. There is still a possibility that disease will return in these patients, but the chances are low, Fauci says. Many are able to live many years without therapy is "a pretty good bonus" of early treatment.

When a person gets infected with HIV and years pass, the virus establishes a reservoir in the long-lived T-cells called lymphocytes, Fauci explains.

"Those latent cells are kind of like embers of a fire, and when we take our treatment away, those latent embers reignite the infection and a fire breaks out," Dr. Michael Saag, professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham says. He was not involved in the study.

When a person with HIV receives aggressive treatment soon after infection, according to the hypothesis put forth by the study, the virus forms a reservoir in the shorter-lived lymphocytes. When therapy was stopped, according to this theory, the viral reservoir was extremely low.

Cases of HIV are most often not treated immediately after infection, Fauci says. People commonly find out they have HIV because they feel poorly or happen to take an HIV test. This usually occurs when the HIBV virus has been present in the patient for years previously.

The new study's conclusion "is even greater fortification for the concept of really seeking out people and identify(ing) them very, very soon after they get infected, and treating them aggressively," Fauci says. That means screening people in high-risk communities.